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“You listen to me. That’s so sweet.”
“Don’t change the subject,” I say.
“Don’t you change the subject. What are you going to do at the end of this year, Gage?”
There it is again. The inevitable end. The end we’ve always been moving toward since before we were married. Since we were just fake fiancés.
But it’s an end I want less and less each day.
I drag a hand through my hair as my lungs work hard, my breath coming fast.
The end of the year is the expiration date I don’t want to face. “I’ll figure it out,” I say as casually as I can. “There’s a lot happening before then. In a week I’ll be taking a trip with Eliza when she finishes the semester. I always take her to Darling Springs for the night. She loves it there.”
Monroe shudders at the mention of the small town along the coast.
“Come on. Your hometown isn’t that bad,” I say.
“Maybe,” he grumbles.
But as I think about the annual trip, for the first time I feel like something is missing. Or maybe someone.
I run harder, faster through the fog on the bridge, and as I peel off the miles I start to wonder—what if we don’t end? And what can I do to romance my wife before time runs out?
34
THE MESSY ME
Elodie
I walk Amanda and Eliza to school, and the girls do what girls often do—speak in their own language with acronyms and did you see this, and I have to show you that. Eliza is telling Amanda she can teach her to make soap, which leads to them bent over phones, watching time-lapse soap-making videos, then Amanda tells Eliza she can take her to the pottery studio again that afternoon, then Eliza asks if she’s heard from the art school.
“Just a few more days,” Amanda says, and I can tell she’s trying to be stoic but she’s barely hiding real nerves.
“I can’t wait to celebrate,” Eliza says, ever the cheerleader.
Amanda’s school comes first, so I wave goodbye to her—hugs are verboten—and then I echo, “Just a few more days.”
She offers a hopeful smile, then says to Eliza, “Ally and I are getting boba after school. Want to come with us?”
Eliza says yes so fast.
Over the next eight blocks, Eliza’s a chatterbox. I barely get a word in edgewise, but I don’t need to since she’s rolling on, telling me about a new TV show she found to stream, then how someone in her class got a hedgehog and named it Gary, and then there’s a new glove she wants for softball, and before we know it, we’re at her school.
I offer to take them again the next day so Gage can run with his friend a second time, and it’s chillier today. We look up at the swollen clouds in the sky. “Do you think it’ll snow?” I ask.
“That would be so cool,” Amanda says.
“We could have a snowball fight,” Eliza says.
“Or make snow angels,” Amanda suggests.
“Or more hot cocoa and warm up by the fire,” I offer.
“Yes! I swear I am not tired of hot cocoa even after Sundays,” Eliza says.
“Facts,” Amanda agrees.
Once we drop off Amanda, Eliza rappels right into another conversation, screw the preamble. “I want to learn to make chocolate too. Like Amanda. Does she make chocolate or is that just you? And where do you make the chocolate? Do you have a chocolate factory in your store?”
